Human rights are under pressure in many places across the globe. Peaceful protests are violently quashed. Voting is tampered with. And minorities are often excluded from decision-making. All of this threatens the ideal of an open society in which each of us can be free and participate equally. A solid protection of human rights is needed for an open society to exist and to flourish. But it is often an uphill battle to work towards that ideal. Equip yourself and learn more about what human rights are and how they work.
In this course, we will introduce you to one of the world’s most intricate human rights systems: the European Convention on Human Rights. You will see when and how people can turn to the European Court of Human Rights to complain about human rights violations. You will learn how the Court tries to solve many of the difficult human rights dilemmas of today. We will look, amongst other things, at the freedom of expression and demonstration, the right to vote, and the prohibition of discrimination. And we will address the rights of migrants, refugees, and other vulnerable groups. And, of course, we will see whether it is possible to restrict rights and if so under what conditions. You will even encounter watchdogs and ice cream in this course. We invite you to follow us on a journey of discovery into the European Convention!

Open societies are all about inclusion. In an open society, everyone should be allowed to participate on an equal footing. No one should be excluded. Equally, human rights should be enjoyed by all people and discrimination is prohibited. Yet, even in an open society, universality of human rights and the prohibition of discrimination may raise many questions. For example, what about the rights of people who are not (yet) citizens of that society, such as asylum seekers? On the one hand, asylum seekers find themselves in the extremely difficult and vulnerable position of being in transit. For that reason, their needs deserve extra consideration. For example, they may need special protection against hostile responses by the local population, they may need food, education and housing, and they must be protected against discrimination. On the other hand, not being citizens, the question is often raised to what extent they should be included and benefit from the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the European Convention on Human Rights. Finding the right balance and solving such dilemmas is crucial in open societies. In this week, we focus on (1) the rights and freedoms of insiders and outsiders under the European Convention, (2) non-discrimination and (3) the protection of vulnerable groups. To illustrate, we pay special attention to the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, as well as of other minority groups.

Taught By

Janneke Gerards

Antoine Buyse

Claire Loven

Transcript

[SOUND] All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Those are the opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And then it goes on to state everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set in this declaration without distinction of any kind. When the United Nations adopted this declaration, just after the second world war in 1948, these words were nothing short of a revolution. Of course, some philosophers had argued that all humans are equal centuries earlier. The practice, almost everywhere, across the globe was that people were not considered as equals. The Second World War itself savagely reflected ideas of superior and inferior peoples. And so did colonialism, apartheid, caste systems and other forms of discrimination. And even in countries where the official ideology was one of equality in practice, some were more equal than others, as George Orwell famously stated in his book Animal Farm. Against this background, the start of the international human rights movement was an important step forward. Not just as a symbol, but also as a matter of law. The newly proclaimed human rights were deemed applicable to everyone, no matter where you live, or what your background is. In that sense, they are explicitly meant to be universal. And not to be dependent on the good luck of being born in a country that truly espouses equality. Building on the universal decoration, the European convention on human rights also reflects this idea. The convention rights applied to all people within the jurisdiction of the states that are parties to it. It does not matter whether you are young or old to enjoy the right to life and it does not matter whether you are a radical or a moderate to have a right to protest. Nor does it matter what the color of your skin is, or your nationality, to claim respect for your privacy. When looking at the text of the convention, we can literally see that most of the rights applied to everyone. No one shall be subjected to torture and everyone has the right to liberty. Thus, in the very formulation of the rights in the European convention we can discover another link with the idea of open societies. Human rights are geared towards inclusion, not towards exclusion. Even people were not highly regarded in society have human rights. You can invoke your human rights whether you are a suspected terrorist or a law abiding person. They are not only for a small elite or for the happy few. And importantly, people who are, in a literal sense, not citizens of a European convention state, can still enjoy the protection of human rights when they are in that state. For example, an Irish woman still has the right to express her opinion when travelling to Serbia. And an Iraqi man in Sweden may not be tortured no matter whether he has a residence permit or not. The European Convention does not force countries to open their borders. But it does offer almost a full range of human rights once you find yourself within one of the convention states. There are limits to what a regional human rights treaty can do, however. There has often been discussion on whether the European convention can be applied throughout the world. In general, we can say that it only applies within the national borders of the European country concerned. Even in the 1950s, the very early years, states were allowed to exclude their colonies from the protection of the convention. As article one of the Convention program provides, states are obliged only to secure human rights in the convention to everyone within their jurisdiction. As you may gather from these words, this is both a wide and open definition, everyone, rather than only certain people. But on the other hand, it also limits the protection of human rights, as indicated by the words, within their jurisdiction. So what does this mean in practice? Well it means that the obligations of countries to protect human rights are restricted to what happens within their own borders. There are only very few exceptions to this rule. These are so called situations of extraterritorial application of human rights. Let me discuss three of them briefly here. In the first place, human rights also apply to situations that can be seen in a way as extensions of a country's territory. When you board a Portuguese airplane, Portugal is obliged to ensure your human rights, even if the plane is flying across the Pacific Ocean. The same goes for ships that fly the flag over European country. Secondly, states are also responsible for territories or people over which to exercise effective control. If one state occupies another, whether legally or illegally under international law, it has the obligation under the European Convention, to ensure the protection of human rights in those very areas. And if you arrest someone outside your own boarders, you are responsible for the protection of that person's rights as soon as he or she literally is in your hands. To put it differently, power entails responsibility. Thirdly, there is a specific, but crucial element of the responsibility that states have to protect human rights. They cannot send people to areas beyond their own borders, where there is a real risk of serious human rights violations and then simply look away and wash their hands in innocence. If you run a risk of being tortured in a country to which you would be sent back, or your life would be in danger, European countries would violate your human rights if they force you to cross the border towards those dangers. Now, as you may imagine, this element of state responsibility to protect human rights has been crucial for many asylum seekers. This key human rights principle is called 'non-refoulement' from the French words for not sending back. All of this shows that the very idea of human rights for everyone is hugely important. It goes beyond the many differences in rights and obligations that people have enforced upon each other throughout history. In an open society, it should not matter who you are, where you were born, both insiders and outsiders are protected. In that very direct sense, human rights with their fundamental of universality are a key element of what an open society should be. To a large extent, the European Convention reflects that very principled starting point. [SOUND]

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